Creating Things People Love

I finished up my tour on the Serenity today with watching the feature film spawned from the Firefly series. I meant to watch it last night, but got some ideas for a character and did some drawing instead. After watching the film, I decided to watch the extra features, even though I saw them when the DVD was new, just to be reminded of some things.

One of the great themes in the Firefly TV series is freedom. It's about not being under the heel of anyone. That's what the Serenity represents to her crew, her captain and, I think, to Joss Whedon, the show's creator as well. This is an idea really brought home in the series episode titled Out of Gas, which shows how the characters and crew came to be together. This idea permeates the extra features on the Serenity feature DVD as well. The movie that defied the system and yet lives. I think there is a spark somewhere in that idea that is very attractive to people. I think there is spark which leads to all things that makes Serenity and the Firefly universe something people can fall in love with.

One of the things Joss Whedon talks about in the extra features, concerning the fans and the San Diego Comic-Con, is that his goal is not to create things people like, but things people love. The scenes from Comic-Con show that he greatly succeeded. This is really what I have always wanted to do. This is what I am hoping to do with iPhone Alchemy. I am hoping it is my freedom.

Imagine taking a boat, that you own, out into the black... no one telling you where to be or what to do. All that open space is yours. You are free, free to come and go as you please, to travel where the win takes you. The internet can open such a door for content creators. You have a whole world out there searching for something new, searching for good content. They are searching for something they can fall in love with. On the net, the creation of that thing is anyone's game. It's not just "the alliance" of media conglomerates and studios and distributors who control what is available in other fields.

This is why I am excited about iPhone Manga and the possibilities here. It's my chance to create and, more fully, create things people love. This is something I have dreamed of for a long time, as far back as when I was on the floor drawing comics through my spiral notebooks for school as a child. I just wanted to create something people loved then too. Now, with iPhone Manga, it may just be that I can not only create it, but the means are there for so many to see it as well. That sounds like freedom to me.

Tags: Manga, TV